fri 01/08/2025

tv

Carlos Ghosn: The Last Flight - Storyville, BBC Four review - the tycoon who fell to earth

Adam Sweeting

The extraordinary story of motor industry executive Carlos Ghosn is a heady combination of power, money, corruption and international politics, with a Mission: Impossible-style ending that carries it over the finishing tape in dramatic style. It might be considered a cautionary tale, except that Ghosn’s experiences and personality were so unique that a repeat performance could never happen.

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Sex/Life, Netflix review - Mills & Boon for the YouPorn era?

Adam Sweeting

Has Netflix succeeded in reshaping Mills & Boon for the YouPorn era?

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Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein's Shadow, Sky Documentaries review - the iniquitous fall of the tycoon's daughter

Adam Sweeting

Last year, Netflix released Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, a four-part documentary about the notorious financier and convicted sex offender.

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Framing Britney Spears, Sky Documentaries review - the rollercoaster ride of the former teen icon

Adam Sweeting

She became one of the most successful pop stars in history, but Britney Spears has also become a paradigm of the horrors and pitfalls of life in the white heat of showbusiness.

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Physical, Apple TV+ review - too much pain, not enough gain

Adam Sweeting

It’s not easy to sum up Physical in a pithy soundbite, though “quasi-political misanthropic comedy” might be vaguely in the right ballpark.

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BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2021 Final, BBC Four review – an embarrassment of vocal riches

David Nice

A massive musical hope for the future is what we all need right now, after 14 stop/semi-start months and a threatened decimation of the concert and opera scene, the danger of which isn't over yet.

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Loki, Disney+ review - the God of Mischief gets his own TV series

Adam Sweeting

After appearing in six of Marvel’s Avengers movies, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki (the God of Mischief) gets his own TV series.

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Lupin, Part 2, Netflix review - master of disguise versus racists and lies

Adam Sweeting

Lupin isn’t really about the fictional character it’s named after (the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc), but about Assane Diop, who’s an obsessive fan of the Lupin novels.

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The Beast Must Die, Britbox review - a crime story which plumbs psychological depths

Adam Sweeting

They all laughed when the streaming service Britbox declared that it wanted to become a sort of UK-orientated Netflix, because so far it’s been mostly a back catalogue operation which plunders the BBC and ITV archives. You really want to pay a subscription to watch Are You Being Served? and Rosemary and Thyme?

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Time, BBC One review - grim and gritty study of life behind bars by Jimmy McGovern

Adam Sweeting

Jimmy McGovern’s new three-part drama about prison life is about as far as you could travel from Ronnie Barker’s Seventies sitcom Porridge, even if they are both on the same TV channel.

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